


swimming pools

by theboyoracle



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Post-Brotherhood, but probably Pre-FFXV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 20:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13256508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theboyoracle/pseuds/theboyoracle
Summary: Someone gets pushed into a swimming pool, and someone else ends up getting pulled in anyway.





	swimming pools

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by @/maobaby on Twitter, with whom I share a love of falling-into-swimming-pool tropes! Also just for the FFXV Twitter community in general, where I find a lot of wonderful art and really nice artists and great ideas, so thank you to everyone for being so welcoming!

“Well, what do you think, Noct?”

Noctis looked up from his phone with little more than a hum, raising his brows as he looked across the room at Ignis, who easily recognized the expression on the prince’s face. Some would say that Noctis doesn’t do much in the realm of expressiveness, but Ignis had long since learned to pick up on the tiniest of things. There was a little confusion, a tired look, and dare he say, the smallest hint of embarrassment? It didn’t take Ignis very long to understand that Noctis hadn’t heard a word of what he just said.

With a sigh, he closed the magazine he was idling through and placed it on the coffee table.

“Did you hear what I said?” Ignis asked, knowing well what the answer would be.

“Uh, no,” Noctis grimaced, showing a row of bared teeth as he shoved his phone away into his pocket. He avoided meeting Ignis’ gaze for a moment until the advisor got to his feet and crossed the lounge room over.

“I suggested going for a walk.”

“Oh,” Noctis mumbled, blinking dark eyes and looking out the glassy window beside him. Ignis sensed the restlessness in him. Something about this time of year, in between the aimless days of summer, always got to Noctis a little.

Noctis was usually able to hang out indefinitely with Prompto, but on days where the freckled whirlwind was busy or otherwise occupied, Noctis would become pouty and spend his time lounging around the Citadel and its accommodations. Ignis learned it as a balance: as much as Noctis liked to spend some time alone, inactivity was bad for him. His loneliness and boredom turned to depression easily when combined with the stress of his father’s conditions.

“We could take a walk to the garages,” Ignis offered, “and I could drive us to my apartment. I picked up some nice groceries the other day and it would be a shame not to have company with such a meal.”

At the mention of food, Noctis came more alive, eyes lighting up and brows quirking upwards. He nodded but made no move to get up, so Ignis turned and began walking out of the room. Once in the hall, he looked behind himself and made no effort to hide the smile that formed on his lips upon seeing Noctis in the doorway. The prince had decided to come along after all.

The two of them walked side by side atop the red carpet. Its plushness underfoot felt so natural, Noctis had never thought much about it, how strange and fanciful it must be to people like Prompto who grew up with neighborhood apartments and city streets and bicycles. The Citadel’s ceilings were tall, the halls long. It was beautiful sometimes, but to Noctis, it could feel so heavy. The marbled stone, the steel lamps, the hundreds and hundreds of windows, the gold accents and dark wood furniture.

“Something the matter?” Ignis asked Noctis, holding a big door open for him.

“Not really,” Noctis paused, looking back at the hallway. It seemed so quiet but massive, like if he let it, the vast silence would overtake him like the sea and damn him like it damned those before him.

“I know what it is you’re feeling.”

Surprised, he looked back at Ignis, who gave him a sympathetic look through the rectangular shape of his glasses and for a moment Noctis was struck with something he couldn’t place. Ignis looked at him with such _knowing_ and Ignis’ face was lit against the open darkness of the sky behind him and there was a sad sort of smile in his eyes. The man took his breath away. Noctis wondered for a moment how he could possibly forget how beautiful Ignis is. And now he was just standing there staring at him like an idiot, but Ignis spoke up again, which was probably a very good thing so Noctis didn’t start saying something that would definitely make more a fool of himself.

“I feel it too sometimes.”

The two of them looked down the hall.

“The weight of it,” Ignis said. He paused for a moment before drawing a breath. “Let’s go.”

They began to walk down some winding stone steps outside, located against the back end of the building, and a color caught Noctis’ eyes. Bright blue shone through the glass-paneled little dome behind a section of the building, tessellating with movement.

“Wait, did they finally fill the pool up?” Noctis asked. It had been empty since the winter, as it always was, but it had stayed that way for a quite a while, probably because no one really used it.  
“I believe so,” Ignis said from the bottom of the steps. “Why? Fancy taking a swim?”

Noctis rolled his eyes.

“I’d like to see it, at least,” the prince responded with a lopsided grin. He hadn’t seen the pool in years. After a time, he just lost interest in it.

The two navigated along the outside of the building towards the dome and Ignis opened the door for Noctis once again. Inside, the intense color of the water filled the dome, shining ripples along every surface. It was like being inside of a blue kaleidoscope, but oddly relaxing. They both watched the shapes it made onto their clothes and skin. Noctis walked through the warm night air, feet taking him to the edge of the pool, where the light reflected harsher onto his proximity. To Ignis’ mounting confusion, Noctis pulled his shoes and socks off and set them aside, lowering himself by the edge and dipping a foot in.

“Oh, it’s not even cold,” Noctis said. It wasn’t cold at all, it was actually… kind of nice.

Ignis had been so worried about Noctis the past few days, but to see him finally show some kind of interest in something again was a massive relief. It made him happy in a way he had trouble describing. He stood by Noctis’ side, like he always would, and looked up at the shimmering glass.

“It is quite underrated in here,” he commented. “I think most- Noct?”

Ignis stopped short, brow furrowing as he glanced to his side. Noctis had reached his hand up and looped a finger around one of his belt loops. Ignis’ mind started going a thousand miles in hour, which seemed such nonsense to him because he and Noct have been unofficially officially together for some time now, and he was about to say something when the pressure on his backside increased and he found himself suddenly tumbling into the water with a shout.

Noctis was quick to cover a shit-eating grin with his hand and got to his bare feet, looking over into the water at the shape that was Ignis, who at once broke the surface, sans the glasses, perfectly coiffed hair pulled down by drops of water. It was almost worth it, Ignis thought as he listened to the sound of Noctis laughing.

The advisor pushed himself through the water, a hand gripping the edge as he rubbed his eyes with a pained expression.

“Agh, Noct!” he shouted. “My eyes!”

“Aw, what?” Noctis crouched, leaning in towards him.

“My glasses came off in the water…”

“I’m sure you’ll live,” Noctis said, reaching forwards to pull Ignis’ hand away from his eyes. When his hand closed around Ignis’ wrist, Ignis spun his hand, in turn grabbing Noctis’ wrist and in one fluid motion pulled him over and into the water with a loud and less than elegant splash. A grin spread onto Ignis’ mouth as Noctis fumbled to the surface.

“Iggy!” Noctis stuttered in disbelief.

“Perhaps you should have been more alert…” Ignis suppressed a chuckle, trying not to take too much pleasure in a grumbly Noctis looking more like a doused cat than a prince of Lucis.

“Oh Astrals, do _not_ lecture me right now,” Noctis groaned, lips twisting in displeasure. “I feel like my shirt is becoming part of me.”

He was pissed, but maybe he deserved it, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Ignis laughing in response. Noctis lowered himself into the water so it was just above his mouth and he blew bubbles, peeking at Ignis from above the blue with narrowed eyes.

“What?” Ignis asked, looking up from his search into the water for his glasses.

Noctis raised his chin above the water.

“You never let your hair down anymore,” he responded, fanning his arms out and pushing himself backwards through the water, creating some distance between them before beginning a slow circle swimming around the advisor.

“Maybe if you woke up early, you’d see it before I got to it,” Ignis followed him as he could with his eyes, then turned in the water to keep watching.

“Yeah, nevermind,” said Noctis flatly, turning and swimming away.

At the end of the pool was a little waterfall bubbling down from a higher, smaller pool of water, towards which Noctis swam. Noctis turned around and smiled at him, and above them, the moonlight hitting the glass of the dome and shattering, illuminating the surface of the water. And underneath them, the lights built into the sides of the pool, filling the water with bright and glowing shades of turquoise between them. It was Ignis’ turn to have his breath taken away.

Noctis took a breath and disappeared beneath the surface, and his shape appeared in a blur from behind the running of the little engineered waterfall. Ignis swam across the pool and went underneath, then shook his head as he surfaced. The water seemed to glow around them, there, where it was just the two of them, and they could pretend the Citadel wasn’t there. The sheets of waterfall poured down behind him, a gentle and constant sound of rushing, above which, only the sound of their breathing. It caught up with them then, the stresses of the previous week that had pulled them apart, responsibilities that moved them around like pieces on a chess board; all of the little touches and stolen glances.

Ignis watched a droplet of glimmering water fall from Noctis’ hair and run a rivulet down the side of his face.

He lifted his hand and pressed his thumb lightly against the prince’s cheek, following the path the drop had made, eyes searching the features of Noctis’ face. When he looked at Noctis’ eyes, it seemed the other was doing the same thing.

Their eyes met, and Noctis’ chest tightened almost painfully, and in that moment Ignis leaned forwards and kissed him slowly. Noctis’ eyelashes were still damp against the side of his cheek, and his lips were softer than Ignis remembered them.

When they parted, the two looked at one another with soft smiles. Noctis’ eyes squinted when he laughed.

“Sorry for pushing you in,” he said in something almost a whisper.

“I will forgive you,” Ignis replied, his hand holding Noctis’ underneath the water, “if you get me my spectacles from the bottom of the pool. And let me cook for you.”

I love you, Noctis thought.

“Deal,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> It's supposed to take place at the Citadel. Does it have a pool? It does now!  
> I hope you guys enjoyed, it's short but sweet! I've been in a writing block lately where I just can't get anything out and I'm not really happy with anything, but I really had fun with this so I think FFXV fic ideas will help me get back into my jam. Hopefully I will be using my account here to post things more often.


End file.
